Reign Allow 3 Goals in 16 Minutes, Blow 2-0 Lead to Gotham
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2950"]
Seattle Reign attacker Sam Meza dribbles the ball during a game against Gotham FC on Saturday, July 18, 2026 at Icahn Stadium in New York, N.Y. (Ruby Klawans / Reign FC Communications) [/caption]
No one knew just how to evaluate what happened to the Seattle Reign on Saturday afternoon.
Facing defending NWSL champion and first-place team Gotham FC after a two-and-a-half-hour lightning delay in a 5,000-person capacity stadium on account of the nearby World Cup final, Seattle led 2-0 heading into the 80th minute. Two first-half goals from Mia Fishel and Maddie Mercado, respectively, had landed them in an advantageous spot late. The former scored her first goal with the team, marking a cause for celebration.
But with Gotham FC bringing world-class offensive talents in the newly signed Sam Kerr and Esther Gonzalez for the second half, Reign coach Laura Harvey dropped her team into a backline of five to nurse the lead and keep the pair at bay.
Gotham, even in the smoky conditions that required four hydration breaks by the game's end, put the pedal to the metal on Seattle for the entire second half. They finished the game with over 70% possession as Gonzalez found the net in the 81st. Then in the fourth minute of a 10-minute second-half stoppage, Gonzalez scored again on a nifty pass from winger Jaedyn Shaw.
IT HAD TO BE ROSE! 🌹
Rose Lavelle scores a late winner for Gotham!!! pic.twitter.com/5MM0QHJnra— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) July 18, 2026
Then, former Seattle star Rose Lavelle put the finishing touches on the comeback with a transition banger of a strike, scoring past Reign reserve keeper Cassie Miller from just inside the box in the seventh minute of added time.
The stunning result was worsened by the fact that Maddie Dahlien, who had been so dynamic on the left wing for Seattle all afternoon, missed a penalty that would have made it 3-0 in the second half.
The result dropped Seattle to 5-7-2, good for 11th in the NWSL, while Gotham improved to 9-3-3 to take hold of first place in the league. The loss comes on the heels of a signature 2-0 win from the Reign over Portland.
"That game was on us," Fishel said postgame. "We did it to ourselves."
The Reign dealt with plenty of injuries to their usual starters, as usual right back and NWSL all-time assist leader Sofia Huerta and left back Madison Curry both missed the game. Keeper Claudia Dickey missed her second straight as she recovers from an ankle injury.
Captain and club legend Jess Fishlock made her first appearance in three months late, but wasn't able to find a late goal to help Seattle avert the disaster that unfolded.
The Maddies Torment Gotham Early
The heavy rain pregame mixed with a steady stream of precipitation throughout the first half forced the players to meter their steps a fair amount. Neither team could establish control of the game through the first few minutes, but Seattle managed to establish some real threats after the 10-minute mark.
The Reign won the ball at midfield, and 18-year-old Ainsley McCammon, who has made accurate deep passing her calling card, delivered a peach of a ball to a sprinting Dahlien, hoping to catch Gotham off guard.
That she did, as the second-year winger leveraged her strong pace to get to the left end line with teammates in tow. She delivered a kind of service Harvey has called her favorite, a rolling ball from the end line, toward two arriving Seattle attackers.
Mercado got to the ball at the far post, but was chopped down by Gotham's Mandy Freeman for an instant penalty kick. Without Huerta, the usual taker, Fishel to the spot, trying to wash away a year in Seattle without a goal.
That she did, picking out the bottom right corner for a goal through the left hand of keeper Ann-Katrin Berger.
BIG FISH SCORES IN THE BIG APPLE! pic.twitter.com/zvkKrIoX4k— Seattle Reign FC (@reignfc) July 18, 2026
"I knew I wanted to take (the penalty) for the team, and yeah, I felt confident," Fishel said. "I'm just happy that, you know, people can stop talking about it at this point because to me, it wasn't a big deal."
As the rain continued to pour down, Seattle worked another chance forward with Sam Meza in the 16th. Her service to Dahlien was deflected as Seattle was turning a solid early press into consistent chances going the other way.
After the first of two first-half hydration breaks at the 20-minute mark, Seattle found itself in a similar situation to the opening goal. Center back Phoebe McClernon launched a long ball down the left side to spring Dahlien free again. She made it all the way to the end line once again, launching another rolling service in to Mercado.
Fourth goal on the season for Maddie Mercado puts us up 2-0! ⚡ pic.twitter.com/hJ0jnYf1Sa— Seattle Reign FC (@reignfc) July 18, 2026
This time, she wouldn't be fouled and buried a close-range shot for her second goal in as many games. It was Mercado's fourth goal of 2026.
"Everybody knows (Dahlien), one of her biggest strengths is her speed," Mercado said of the setup. "She's been working so hard on her ability to cross and put consistent balls in the box, and I think she, the past few games, has done that."
For all her service this season, it was Dahlien's first assist of the campaign.
"In the first half, we did some brilliant things, and we caused them real problems," Harvey said.
A Missed Opportunity
After Mercado's goal, the Reign ended up dropping back to avoid giving up the quick response goal that's plagued them this season. Seattle's only real chance in the rest of the half came in the 37th when Dahlien ended up in space, but opted to pass out of a 1-on-1 chance.
Gotham, on the other hand, began to dominate possession, heading into halftime with 72% possession after McClernon cleared away late service from defender Midge Purce in stoppage time.
With the Reign on the back foot coming out of the half, they had a rare chance in the 50th minute with Dahlien playing another ball back in to Mercado from the end line. Mercado ended up spinning out of trouble and launching an off-target shot.
But as the pass came in, defender Emily Sonnett fouled Seattle midfielder Sally Menti to let the ball roll by. After a five-and-a-half-minute review, the penalty was given
Dahlien, of all players, stepped to the spot. There would be no chance for Fishel to bag a brace early in the second half.
"(Dahlien) was pretty adamant about (taking the penalty), and when a player wants to take a PK, I can't really say much," Fishel said. "So I just let her take it."
Dahlien, who perhaps earned it with her consistent service in helping notch two penalty kicks and a goal, ran up to launch her first professional penalty kick.
She missed it off the left post, leaving the door open for the defending champs.
"If we score… the second penalty to make it a third goal, it's a different game, which is tough," Harvey said, having the hindsight of knowing what came next.
It All Comes Crashing Down
Esther Gonzalez, a star striker for Gotham, came on at halftime alongside defender Guro Reiten. Then, in the 63rd, came Sam Kerr, who recently rejoined Gotham after nine seasons away from the Empire State.
She immediately changed the game, heading a Purse service in front of the goal to force Miller to the ground for a save. A minute later, Lavelle crossed a ball in to Kerr, and her first-touch shot was saved by Miller again.
Gotham was pushing the issue and exploiting growing gaps in the same back five Seattle was using to keep Gonzalez and Kerr off the board.
In the 81st, they broke through. Star winger Jaedyn Shaw found space off the left side to get Gonzalez a header at the far post. With Miller clinging to the near side of the goal, Gonzalez did the unthinkable and wedged her shot in the small gap between Miller and the post.
2-1.
Fishlock came on at this point, hoping to score an insurance goal for Seattle late.
That wasn't to be.
The tempo was picking up, and Seattle was left tapping its feet, trying to find the rhythm.
Emily Mason, filling in at right back opposite another reserve in Ryanne Brown, had to slide to block a shot from Kerr that looked goal-bound. Seattle was fighting for its life with a long stoppage surely on the way.
In the fourth minute of stoppage, Shaw waited for a long service in the box and guided an assist in for Gonzalez to even things up in close.
2-2.
"You've got to protect the most important area of the field, and that's in the middle," Harvey said of Shaw's reception and Gonzalez's goal. "We didn't do a good enough job of that."
With six more minutes, it was clear the Reign were just hoping to draw as Gotham had completely usurped the momentum.
Gonzalez put a solid through ball to Kerr at the edge of the box in the seventh minute of stoppage. Kerr held Seattle defenders at bay as Lavelle came in to blast a shot past a shell-shocked Reign defense on the left side of the net.
3-2.
Game over.
"Too easy," Harvey said of the decisive blow. "Some people are pressing, some people are dropping, and then once that ball dropped to (Lavelle), however far out she was.
“I didn't even see the ball hit the back of the net. I knew it was going in."
A Stunning Defensive Breakdown; Reign Offense Continues Upward Trend
The discord between Harvey and the players was apparent in the postgame.
Nobody pointed fingers, per se, but both Fishel and Mercado agreed Seattle went defensive too early. Harvey, meanwhile, said reverting to a backline in the second half was to account for Kerr and Gonzalez wreaking havoc on Seattle.
"I think we got too defensive too quickly, instead of keep going at them (for) three, four, five, six goals," Fishel said. "I feel like it's on players to read the room and be like, 'No, we need to keep going instead of holding back.'"
It was a proper media-trained answer, but the reality of the situation is scoring with a back five is simply harder to do.
"We didn't have as much joy then in the second half doing the same things we'd been doing, partly because we stopped doing them and partly because of how they sort of tweaked a little bit with their personnel to stop that," Harvey said of the tactics and the shift away from primarily pressing.
While it makes sense to put more bodies in the danger spots, Seattle died a death of a thousand cuts. Much like Argentina has done against low blocks in this men's FIFA World Cup, Gotham kept taking advantage of small spaces with nifty passing and world-class quality. Outside of Menti drawing a penalty on an obvious mistake from Sonnett, Gotham had little to worry about in the way of Seattle finding the third goal, and was free to press deep into the Reign's third.
But when Gotham got into Seattle's third, Harvey was disappointed in the space her team was giving the opposing heavy hitters.
"We can't have a back five and have (Gonzalez) in the middle of the goal free," Harvey said.
Harvey and the team spoke about last week’s shutout win over Portland being their new standard, as they held some star scorers off the board. This game simply felt like a young team being overwhelmed by the late surge of a defending champ, saving its best personnel and tactics for late.
As for the offense.
The Spectrum asked Dahlien about taking the game more into her hands in terms of forcing 1-v-1 situations in the second half of the season, with just one goal contribution to her name at that point.
She was honest, as the second-year player said finding the balance of calling your own number and creating chances for others is tough for an NWSL winger. In this one, she had plenty of chances, especially in the first half, to work in space. She delivered two slow-rolling crosses into the box that found Mercado, and she delivered both from near the endline.
While the Reign came into Saturday with the second-most crosses per game (4.9, per FotMob), something about Saturday's game made early service more punishing than usual. The game seemed to slow down thanks to the conditions, as each of the two crosses spent a while crossing the box before they found Mercado.
At any rate, Seattle is finally getting some results for their hard work in producing consistent service. It was all set up by brilliant long balls, as all of Fishel, McClernon and, of course, McCammon delivered deep passes that allowed Dahlien to work in space.
Still, there were moments, particularly against Sonnett in the 37th, where Dahlien could've used that space to work 1-on-1 and instead opted to leave it for an eventual Mercado miss on a longer shot.
At the end of the day, this was a day in which the Reign scored two goals in the half they were allowed to score in. The back 45 of this game was Harvey, and according to Fishel, the players, resolving to win it in a low block.
Gotham graciously handed that five-player backline three goals to flip the game on its head.
Harvey's job now lies with figuring out how to be dangerous in the counter when she drops her team so low, helping her team to find a rhythm again over the full 90.
"We couldn't get ourselves out of that sort of block shape to be able to get up the field, which is something that we need to look at and be a little bit better at in those moments," Harvey said.
Moving Past Heartbreak
"This is a loss, but it doesn't feel like a loss," Fishel said. "We did so many things right, and we executed the game plan… came out strong against the defending champs. And, like, this game was on us, and I think that's the biggest thing…
"We can learn from it, and be better from it."
Though her team is young, Harvey emphasized how Seattle didn't get too high emotionally after a cathartic 2-0 win over rival Portland last Sunday.
She's hoping for the same steady reception to this loss, as the Reign take on a second-place San Diego squad on the road next Sunday, vying for a playoff spot that just feels out of reach at the moment.
